Make Your Prims Count Part 4: Artworks and Signage

Welcome once again to another in a series of blog posts for helping you make your prims go further in your home, club, or shop. My pub, when it was first built, had very few prims available (all of 116!) and so I had to make each one count. But what about signs, posters, neon, and all those little bits of “flair” that make a pub a pub? Sure, you can just put one poster to a prim and put them on your walls, but believe me, those prims add up FAST. So I’ve got a few ideas for cutting your prim usage in half (and possibly even more!) for signage and artworks.

Three Images to One Prim

This can either be used the long way (as I’ll show you) or the tall way. For best results, use images that have some alpha (transparency) to them; this isn’t necessary, however, for making a great three-image prim.Click to Enlarge.
1. Rez a box prim.

2. Set its dimensions to:

X: 1.5

Y: 3.0

Z: .01

3. Set the Taper to Y: 67%.

Click to Enlarge.

4. Click the “Texture” tab. Set the prim’s whole texture to “Default-Transparent-Texture”, available in your Library’s “Textures” folder.

5. Choose “Select Texture” and click just the very center panel. Select an image to use from your own inventory; for this example we’ll use a sun face that I made.

Click to Enlarge.

6. Since this particular sample is being presented the long way, rather than the tall way, we’ll need to rotate our image. Set the Image Rotation to 90 or 270, whichever gives you an upright image.

Click to Enlarge

7. Repeat for the other two images; click to select a panel, then select your image. For this example I’m using an old poster from the “Dead Man Blues” RP murder mystery that Hotlanta Blues did back a year ago January. Once again, you’ll want to set the Image Rotation to either 90 or 270 degrees.

8. Finally, rotate the entire prim so that it’s standing upright, instead of lying flat. It’s now ready to go on your wall!

Variation: You can use this same technique to put 2 images on a prim; just change the “taper” to 100%. You can adjust the Top Shear to give your panels varied sizes.

Two-Sided Signage

This is a great way to put signs–even of different dimensions–on both sides of the same wall; it also works well with murals.Front of Wall.Back of wall.

Our sample wall is going to be .5m thick, so our sign’s going to be .51m, or just wide enough to protrude from the wall on both sides. Adjust this formula as necessary; if your wall is .2m thick, for example, make your sign prim .21m tall (yes, tall; I’ll explain shortly).

Click to Enlarge.

1. Rez a Box prim.

2. Make its dimensions:

X: 1.5

Y: 3.0

Z: .01

And its rotation Y: 270.

3. Line the prim up with the wall so that it’s visible on both sides.

Tip: Click the wall to see where its Position is, and adjust the X or Y axis of the sign prim’s position to match the right number.

Click to Enlarge

4. Use the Taper settings to adjust the dimensions of the signs. You could also use Top Shear. You can use both positive and negative taper settings, as shown here.

Optional step: Set the prim’s entire texture to Transparent (available in your Library). This is especially recommended if you plan to use alpha (partly transparent) textures for your signs.

5. Click Select Texture, and then click on one face of your sign and select your sign texture. You may have to adjust the Rotation to 90, 180, or 270 degrees.

Making a Neon Sign

You may wish to make one of your sign panels from the previous two lessons into a neon sign. Here’s an easy way to do that, using an alpha texture.
1. Click “Select Texture” and select the face you wish to use for your neon sign.

2. Choose a neon sign texture. If you’d like the texture I’m using here, drop me an IM and I can send it to you.

3. Click to enable “Full Bright”, and turn the Glow up to 0.10. A little goes a long way with Glow. If you have it turned up too high, people won’t be able to see your sign at all.

One-Prim Animated Waterfall

You know those cool animated waterfall artworks? They can get really primmy. But this one has only ONE PRIM and features a waterfall that moves while the brick wall stays nice and still.
This is a somewhat advanced project, and you’ll need a few materials for it.

3. Texture the entire prim “blank”, and make its color black. (Note: the photo shows a couple faces that have not been textured. Don’t worry about that. Just make the whole prim blank and black for now.)Click to Enlarge.

4. Click “Select Texture” and click the inside of the hollowed cube. Choose the Brick texture (you’ll need to upload it to your Inv; name it whatever you want) and make its Horizontal repeats 4.0 and its Vertical repeats 2.0.

5. Select the front of the box and choose a water texture from your Library > Textures > Waterfall folder. I used the Medium Overlay texture, but you may prefer something different. Make sure it’s a texture that enables you to see the brick through it.

Click to Enlarge.

6. Adjust the waterfall texture on the front of the prim; change its rotation to 90 degrees.

7. Click “stretch” and drag your Y Axis (the green boxes) so that the prim is now as shallow as possible (.01m; you might prefer to set it numerically. Either works.).

9. Get the first script (above) and select the whole thing (CTRL+A on a PC; CMD+A on a Mac), and copy it (CTRL+C on a PC; CMD+C on a Mac).

10. Back inworld, double click the New Script to open it. Select the entire content of the New Script with CTRL+A (CMD+A on a Mac) and paste the script you copied into its place. Save the script and close it.

11. Click New Script again. Hello again, Avatar!

12. Get the second script (above) and select the whole thing, and copy it.

13. Back inworld, double click the New Script1 to open it. Select the entire content of the New Script1 with CTRL+A (CMD+A on a Mac) and paste the script you copied into its place. Save the script and close it.

Now, if all went right, you have a single prim waterfall complete with animation and sound.

I hope this tutorial has been helpful to you. Remember, don’t be afraid to experiment; it’s only prims. Be sure to let me know what you think of this and other tutorials, and don’t forget to share with your friends!

By the way, coming soonish, Make Your Prims Count will be available as an inworld book! Not only can you follow along with the tutorials as you build, but the book will also actually give you samples of all projects to follow along with and tinker with as you go!

Yes, it’s definitely a script that uses face numbers; a script that’s well beyond my ken. The best I’ve found so far is a script that numbers the prim’s faces for you. The nearest I’ve seen for making a multi-panel single prim a vendor is the single prim, multi-item vendor used by HippoVend. So it can surely be done. Just not by ME.

Also, the five panel option, which I didn’t list here (Ayumi shows it on her blog however) is a bit more tricky than the two or three panel option when it comes to placing the actual pictures. However, it can be done, as explained by a comment linked just under the five panel tutorial.